LJ Idol Season 9, Week 1: Jayus

That joke isn’t funny anymoreIt’s too close to homeAnd it’s too near the boneMore than you’ll ever know.—The Smiths

Two men stand beneath a sign welcoming travelers to Branson, MO, US midwest entertainment spot. They hold a sign between them, a long expanse of white vinyl with a word equation in red

”Diversity” = White Genocide

These men—and others like them and women, too, across the country—are participating in the White Man March, an effort to promote the cause of scores of beleagured white men across the nation and the world. I learned about this march as I scrolled through my facebook feed while my train rolled across the northern US, from Poughkeepsie, NY to Chicago, IL, and then down south to Jackson, MS. I LOL’d as I shared it, but my heart wasn’t in it.

The White Men don’t actually march, of course; perhaps even in their advanced delusional states they see the absurdity of a march of white men on Washington, D.C. as they advocate for the supremacy of their position. Instead, they protest in public spaces nationwide, spreading this malevolent math to anyone who will look. They post images of their protest on the White Genocide Project site. I imagine that behind the login, they’re trading electronic high fives in forum and chat, patting each other on the back and shoring one another up for the next round of engagement. They’re a movement, after all, and participation in a movement gives one an identity and membership in an exclusive club. We love to feel like we belong.

Everyone on my feed thinks it’s funny, this stream of reports about an ineffective march of marginally angry white folks against—what, I can’t quite tell. Immigration reform? Interracial childbirth? Breathing their white air? I shake my head and try to smile, but I can’t help but link them to the gun nuts and the Stand Your Ground-ers and every white person I’ve seen screaming, yelling, not listening but always telling everyone in earshot that “they’re” out to get “you,” using that logic to kill them before they kill you.

I wish I could laugh.

This post was written in response to the Week 1 prompt at therealljidol. Thank you for reading and be sure to check out the other great entries!